Most Young Americans See Trump as ‘Illegitimate President’

Responses were varied as to what made Trump’s presidency seem illegitimate. Some said it was his nationalist rhetoric and policies; others said they doubted whether he was fairly elected. (Photo: Ted Eytan/flickr/cc)

Most young Americans see President Donald Trump as illegitimate, according to a new poll out Friday.

The survey by GenForward, conducted by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, found that 57 percent of adults between 18-30 years old—including three-quarters of black Americans and a large portion of Latinos and Asians—see Trump’s presidency as illegitimate.

A slim majority of white young adults, 53 percent, consider him a legitimate president, but even among that group, 55 percent disapprove of the job he’s doing.

Responses were varied as to what made Trump’s presidency seem illegitimate. Some said it was his nationalist rhetoric and policies; others said they doubted whether he was fairly elected.

One respondent said he keeps remembering Trump giving a speech in which he referred to Mexicans as criminals and rapists. “You can’t be saying that [if] you’re the president,” said the respondent, 21-year-old Jermaine Anderson, a student from Florida.

“I’m thinking, he’s saying that most of the people in the world who are raping and killing people are the immigrants. That’s not true,” Anderson said.

Megan Desrochers, a 21-year-old student from Michigan, said, “I just think it was kind of a situation where he was voted in based on his celebrity status verses his ethics.”

The poll of 1,833 adults age 18-30 was conducted February 16 through March 6. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

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